Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
What Brain Scans Reveal About Humans Seeking Revenge
Recent neuroscience discoveries reveal a chilling picture: Your brain on revenge looks like your brain on drugs. Brain imaging studies show that grievances—real or imagined perceptions...
How Women From The Former East Germany Are Shaking Up The Museum World
What these women offer isn’t nostalgia. It’s clarity. A resistance to simplification. A belief that history is not a finished room. In Kathleen Reinhardt’s...
Hollywood Bowl LA Phil Season Opens On A Down Note
One of the highlights of this season has fallen victim to a baffling Venezuela travel ban. Gustavo Dudamel can no longer bring his Simón Bolivar...
Historic Documents Stolen Ten Years Ago From Dutch National Archives Are Found In Attic
A decade ago, an employee stole 25 priceless documents from the Netherlands’ National Archives in the Hague. The trove included 16th-century records of clandestine government affairs, a...
AI Slop Is Swamping Publishing
Creative professionals have long found themselves amid an existential crisis in a market where profits are slim and the vast majority of them will...
Bronx Museum Picks A New Director
Shamim M. Momin is, most recently director of curatorial affairs at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle and co-founder of Los Angeles Nomadic Division, succeeds Klaudio Rodriguez, who...
First Look At LACMA’s New Home
Created to house the museum’s permanent art collection, the David Geffen Galleries increase the total museum space from 130,000 square feet to 220,000 square...
Columbia University In Discussion To Pay Trump Administration $200 Million
Part of the money would be paid to the government, people familiar with the matter said. White House officials said the deal also includes...
Kennedy Center’s Director Of Jazz Joins Long Line Of Leaders Quitting
He is the latest administrator to leave the performing arts center following the Trump takeover. Other administrators who also left included Renée Fleming, Shonda Rhimes and...
Restaurants Consider Ditching Recorded Music Because Of Higher Licensing Fees
The National Restaurant Assn. said its members pay an average of $4,500 per year to license music, or 0.5% of the average U.S. small...
The Harvard Linguist Who’s Figured Out How Algorithms Have Shaped Our Language
“I want to balance being a ‘ha-ha funny’ TikToker with academic credibility. It’s a little hard to strike that balance when you are talking...
La Scala To Ticket-Buyers: No Flip Flops! (We Mean It!!)
The venue is stepping up the enforcement of its dress code this summer, reminding patrons via signs in the foyer to dress “in keeping...
Does It Matter if That Art You Liked Was Fake?
I wondered what it meant if the Greek water jar I had been so moved by, depicting a woman who may have been Sappho...
The Bayeux Tapestry Was Too Fragile To Move. So Now It’s Visiting England? What...
The shift in tone may seem stark, but the Bayeux Museum said it had carried out tests – including a dress rehearsal with a...
Scrappy Indie Publisher John Martin, 94
Martin, an adventurous independent publisher who brought out the raucous work of the poet Charles Bukowski, as well as the writing of other offbeat...
Casing The Joint: Homeland Security Descends On Chicago’s National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts
According to the museum, officers told staff that they were there in an attempt to assess places where undocumented immigrants might enter and leave...
Oakland Eliminates Its Top Arts Manager Position
The Oakland City Council passed a budget on June 11 that eliminated its Cultural Affairs Manager position, citing budgetary concerns. But critics say money-saving...
How Ancient Water Clocks Changed Our Notions Of Time
As ancient civilisations began to need more reliable timekeeping mechanisms, the technology took an extraordinary leap forward with the advent of dependable water clocks,...
Museums Are Rethinking The Environmental Costs Of Collection Climate Controls
These decades-old guidelines determine the temperature and relative humidity at which museums maintain their collections, but implementing them comes with high energy costs and...
How Slow-Motion Became The Movies’ Go-To Effect
The “slow-mo effect,” is retrospective, a trick of memory. Still, it indicates a remarkable theatricality, a cinematic flair, on the part of our brains....
Gen Zers Are Flocking To NYC Art Schools
The surge comes as many young adults grapple with fears about the impacts of artificial intelligence, a sense of internet overload and a desire...
How Trump’s BBBill Will Impact Non-Profits
Provisions in the new law raise unsettling questions about how the nonprofit world will be affected — and the answers may not be known...
Creative Tree Of The Year?
Ten nominees have been chosen to meet this year’s theme of “rooted in culture”, which seeks to highlight how trees inspire creative minds and...
How Leisure Became Digital
For many Canadians, play has migrated from board games or the rec leagues to smartphone screens. It’s no longer confined to the weekend or...
How The Grateful Dead Made Live Music Sound Great At Concerts
Phil Spector had famously created a figurative wall of sound by layering instruments and orchestral sweeps. But the Dead’s wall was essentially a behemoth...
